Comics!

[rivkat]

Z's wonderful anniversary gift (along with wonderful-in-other-ways chocolate) was a bunch of comics recommended to him as interesting takes on the superhero thing; geekturnedvamp also gave me a large number at Vividcon, so I thought I'd do a comics-only review this time.

Comments

[thete1]

Your tastes and mine coincide neatly. :D

Re: Supreme Power -- Joe is the Green Lantern clone. A version of Hal Jordan. :D

Also... man. I recommend not waiting for the next SP trade. No spoilers, but they do a *lot* with the race issues. I'm just saying.

[rivkat]

Duh! That explains a lot. I am very GL-deficient in my knowledge.

Maybe I'll have to go to the comics store this weekend ...

[sarismchee]

eee! happy anniversary!

[londonkds]

I haven't read it, but from reviews I think The Pro was meant to be a satire on the dubious attitude to sexuality in relation to superheroines (liking sex or having lots of it =evil, and the Bad Girl always has to die or be an emotional wreck at the end).

[rivkat]

Hmm. Yet the Pro didn't seem to like sex all that much -- it was a crummy job she hated, according to her. So I'm not sure that the critique part came through all that well, though the sexual hypocrisy of the Superman figure (she made him have sex; he didn't want to) was highlighted.

nice roundup (there's more)

[accommodatingly]

Everyone told me I'd like Powers, so I read Role Play. Not bad, but I didn't like the dialogue: I had the sense that Bendis comes up with great plots but writes the details in too much of a hurry. Alan Moore's TOP TEN is a far superior, to my mind, superheroes-as-detectives story-- set in a near-future sf city where EVERYONE has some sort of superpower, it's a police procedural (think Hill Street Blues, NOT Law & Order) with interdimensional, and very funny pratical angles. The update of SQUADRON SUPREME sounds better than the original, which was pretty narrowly focused on the political implications of superheroes (what if the Justice League imposed a world government) and which, like Watchmen, used an obscure company's old characters rather than rewriting famous ones. But my very favorite realistic-superhero comic series is certainly Kurt Busiek's ASTRO CITY. Read it already?

Re: nice roundup (there's more)

[rivkat]

I've read and enjoyed Top Ten, but is it active any more? And I'm impressed you've actually read Squadron Supreme -- if you have a copy, may I borrow it?

I haven't heard of Astro City, but next trip to the comic book store I will keep an eye out.